LOS ANGELES — Coaches weren’t allowed to watch as UCLA players filtered onto Spaulding Field for their player-run practices this summer. The final decision for Chip Kelly’s first starting quarterback at UCLA is still weeks away. None of that stopped the contenders from trying to jockey for the upper hand.

“Everybody wants to be known as the alpha dog or the top guy,” receiver Theo Howard said Wednesday of the quarterbacks. “(In) a quarterback, you want somebody who’s going to take control and be a leader and be vocal, and I’ve definitely seen that from all of them.”

While UCLA has five challengers for the role of Josh Rosen’s successor, the quarterback battle boils down to three leaders: incumbent backup Devon Modster, grad transfer Wilton Speight and true freshman Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

Entering training camp, which begins Aug. 3, UCLA’s quarterback situation is “a wide-open deal,” head coach Chip Kelly said Wednesday at Pac-12 media day. It’ll be the most-watched position battle of Kelly’s first year in Westwood.

The former Oregon coach has dual-threat options who resemble the stars he helped launch in Eugene and a towering prototypical pocket-passer. The choice will come down to a simple question.

“Who’s the best quarterback?” Kelly said. “What we don’t want is we don’t want a running back who can’t throw. We want a quarterback that if he has the ability to run, then we play to those strengths. If he has the ability to throw the ball a lot more, then you play to those strengths. Just who’s going to be the best for the team.”

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Modster led the quarterbacks during spring before Speight and Thompson-Robinson arrived. A solid spring campaign ended on a disappointing note when he threw an interception on the third play of the spring game. It was his first post-Rosen appearance in a game-like situation in front of fans. The crowd at Drake Stadium audibly groaned after his mistake.

Many fans are quick to overlook the former Tesoro High star in favor of the enticing, yet unknown, possibility of an unproven freshman or a grad transfer whose Michigan career ended with a spinal injury. However, Modster’s teammates haven’t forgotten his 295-yard, two-touchdown performance in the Cactus Bowl as Rosen’s emergency substitute.

“Right now he’s the leader of our offense,” Howard said, “so it’s going to be interesting (to see) how he does.”

Modster is the only quarterback on the roster who has starting experience in UCLA’s blue and gold. Speight, however, has started 16 games in different shades of the same colors.

The 6-foot-6 quarterback threw for 3,192 yards and 22 touchdowns at Michigan before transferring. He’s been practicing with his new teammates for about two months, impressing them with his arm talent. On a team with just three seniors on offense and eight total, Speight’s experience is a valuable addition to his bid for the starting job.

“You’re getting a guy that’s got some maturity to him and has been there, done that,” Kelly said. “He’s there for a reason. He wants to get a degree from UCLA from the graduate school and he wants to play football.”

Speight has a single year left in his college career, but Thompson-Robinson at least has the feeling of UCLA’s quarterback of the future. The future may start early, though, as Howard commended the four-star recruit for his confidence while jumping straight into summer workouts and player-run practices.

“He’s really trying to take control and really doing a good job of making a connection with all the different receivers and getting in his playbook,” Howard said.

Thompson-Robinson may still be raw — he started only one year at quarterback in high school. But Kelly has experience with inexperienced signal-callers; Marcus Mariota didn’t start until his senior year either.

Thuc Nhi Nguyen has covered UCLA for the Southern California News Group since 2016. A proud Seattle native, she majored in journalism and mathematics at the University of Washington. She likes graphs, animated GIFs and superheroes.